Sandy M’s review of Play Dirty by Sandra Brown
Romantic Suspense released by Pocket 22 Jul 08

I’m always amazed at how Sandra Brown takes the unlikeliest of characters, brings them together in ways that have them either suspicious of one another or disliking each other, and the next thing we know those characters are set on a course for the relationship of a lifetime after going through hell and back to get there. The rides we’re given with her heroes and heroines are always extraordinary, and Griff and Laura in Play Dirty are among the best of Brown’s main characters yet. Griff has just been released from prison, serving five years for racketeering. He had it all as the Dallas Cowboys star quarterback, but when he made the decision to throw a couple of games for big bucks, how the mighty fell from grace. He’s now lost everything, including friends and what family he was lucky to have after being abandoned as a teenager. Getting a job, even the most menial, is harder than he ever thought. Then the most outrageous proposition comes his way.

I agreed with Griff when he thought Foster Speakman was a freakin’ whack job. But when a man is as down and out as Griff, he can only refuse temptation for so long. Speakman and his wife, Laura, want a child. Because of injuries he sustained in an auto accident, he can’t do the deed anymore, so they turn to Griff because of his similarities in appearance to Foster — they want their child to look as much like Foster as possible so no one will ever doubt the child is his. Once Griff gets past the craziness of a man offering his wife up to be screwed by another man, he goes for it. He’ll be as rich as sin when it’s all said and done. And it’s been a long five years without sex. Why not take the cake and eat it too.

Laura is driven by guilt and agrees to most anything her husband asks of her, but this latest scheme is almost more than she can bear. She doesn’t want to have sex with another man, but she does it anyway to finally have the child they’ve always wanted, although she wants it to be Foster’s. The times she meets Griff for their Foster-sanctioned rendezvous are done very realistically from her perspective. I enjoyed the dichotomy of watching Laura and Foster’s relationship disintegrate while her association with Griff grows and eventually blossoms, all due to the same set of circumstances and the eventual deterioration of a man’s tragic life.

In between all these goings-on, Griff is being hounded by a man working for the organization that brought his downfall around in the first place. Friends begin to be threatened and even injured to wring any leftover information out of Griff to their satisfaction. There’s several major twists that caught me completely unaware and made me gasp in disbelief. Ms. Brown is a pro at deceiving her readers, making them think one thing while something totally different is going on. She does that beautifully in this book. It’s as subtle as sleight of hand. You don’t see it coming until it’s staring you in the face and you have no idea how you missed it.

I really like Griff. Getting caught and paying for his crimes makes him definitely grow up and realize how stupid he was. He sees how he hurt those who love him. He loses his selfishness and garners a sensitiveness that sneaks in under the radar and makes you begin to love him, as does Laura. He still goes through hell after his stint in prison and I felt deflated right along with him, wondering if he’s ever going to get a break. But he perseveres, fights for those he loves and for what’s right.

Laura’s life follows a similar pattern as Griff’s in that she has it all at one point too, but her fall is due to nothing of her own making. You begin to cheer for her just as strenuously as you do Griff.

For a number of years now my favorite Sandra Brown book has been The Alibi. Play Dirty is very close to toppling it from its pedestal and taking over the top spot.

Grade: A+

Summary:

After five long years in federal prison, Griff Burkett is a free man. But the disgraced Cowboys quarterback can never return to life as he knew it before he was caught cheating. In a place where football is practically a religion, Griff committed a cardinal sin, and no one is forgiving.

Foster Speakman, owner and CEO of SunSouth Airlines, and his wife, Laura, are a golden couple. Successful and wealthy, they lived a charmed life before fate cruelly intervened and denied them the one thing they wanted most — a child. It’s said that money can’t buy everything. But it can buy a disgraced football player fresh out of prison and out of prospects.

The job Griff agrees to do for the Speakmans demands secrecy. But he soon finds himself once again in the spotlight of suspicion. An unsolved murder comes back to haunt him in the form of his nemesis, Stanley Rodarte, who has made Griff’s destruction his life’s mission. While safeguarding his new enterprise, Griff must also protect those around him, especially Laura Speakman, from Rodarte’s ruthlessness. Griff stands to gain the highest payoff he could ever imagine, but cashing in on it will require him to forfeit his only chance for redemption…and love.

Griff is now playing a high-stakes game, and at the final whistle, one player will be dead.

Read an excerpt.